


TianShan Week Prompts

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: M/M, See each chapter for tags!, Tianshan Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: One-shots written for theprompts on Tumblr. All fics originally postedhere.Day 1: Pursuit (ft. street racing)Day 2: Dear One (ft. chocolate-feeding)Day 3: Hunger (ft. letters to Mo Guan Shan)Day 4: Shield (ft. 5+1)Day 5: AU (ft. Harry Potter AU)Day 6: One Day (ft. Mo Guan Shan's diary)Day 7: Freestyle (ft. NSFW club scene;illustrated by bisho-s)





	1. Pursuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: street-racing, kissing, swearing, the boys are 18

‘I’m not fucking getting in that.’

‘Come on, Don’t Close Mountain. You’ll be my good luck charm.’

‘Sounds like the one thing I don’t want to fucking give you.’

‘What do you want to _fucking_ give me?’

The word was the colour of cherries and tasted like wine, lush on the tongue, spilling from He Tian’s mouth like blood welling, sweetly, darkly offered in sacrifice. 

Guan Shan ignored it. ‘You always get me into shit.’

‘As far as I remember, I’m the one that gets you _out_ of it.’ He Tian’s eyes met his own, glinting like oil spills and dark as exhaust fumes. Sitting on the bonnet of the car, he crossed his feet at the ankles, folded his arms, cigarette loose and dangling in the 3am summer heat. ‘You know, I think you owe me.’

A scowl came easily. ‘All about debts and favours, huh? Think you’re tough shit ‘cause you own me?’

He Tian snorted. ‘I don’t _own_ you, Guan Shan.’ There was enough derision that Guan Shan believed him. Enough of a lift at the edges of his lips that Guan Shan didn’t believe thatHe Tian _didn’t_ _want to._ ‘I just think you could repay me. I think you’ll enjoy this.’

‘We don’t all like fast cars that our daddies bought us to make up for a shitty childhood.’

He Tian gave nothing away; he must have heard it before. He must have not cared so much about what Guan Shan thought about how he’d grown up. At least He Tian’s dad had given him _something_ to show for his absence.

He Tian flicked his cigarette, a glow bug sparking as hot ash slipped to the asphalt beneath their feet. He said, ‘I’ve worked summers for my uncle since middle school and bought it myself.’

Guan Shan looked at the car. Hot metal thrumming under his hand like a beast with fire rumbling in its belly. It was the call of a siren’s song, only darker, and it didn’t hold lies in its sharp edges: it promised all that Guan Shan knew it was.

‘Most teenagers earn enough to go to fucking Shanghai or trekking to Mount Huangshan. They don’t get … _this_.’

‘He paid well. I was invaluable to him.’

Guan Shan’s eyes crinkled at the corners. He felt made of folds and uneven edges that bruised and blunted and cut between fingertips; smooth smiles and soft smiles didn’t become him that way. They didn’t come easy to him the way they must have to He Tian. He felt like the cragged precipice of some yawning, open void, a mountain ready to pierce. He Tian, instead, was a lake—a blue, glittering expanse that pretended it wouldn’t drown you. 

Guan Shan said, reaching, ‘Sounds like you’re just overcompensating.’

He Tian rolled his eyes. ‘We both know well enough that I’m not.’

Guan Shan looked at the car. Distinctly, more than ever, he was becoming aware of the different worlds they lived in.

Standing here on the side of the road, He Tian sly and dressed for the dark, an engine humming and cigarette smoke wisping like a ghost—here felt like those worlds were trying to collide, two dangers of a different breed trying to match or out-best the other. Guan Shan wasn’t sure his, with all its rough, gritty, bloody-knuckled edges, would be enough. 

He knew that money like He Tian’s breathed danger of a different calibre, hidden and whisper-soft that pressed its lips to the crook of your neck and told you that you liked it. 

Guan Shan shoved his hands in his pockets. Street lights spilled out puddles of amber around them; cars slipped past, slowing when they saw He Tian’s car—probably, when they saw He Tian too. Drove past and rolled the windows down and wondered what, exactly, someone like Guan Shan was doing someone like He Tian, fracturing the picture of what it should have been, He Tian the map and Guan Shan the scored marks from the scratches of a pen over rivers and forests and mountain passes.

‘Make your mind up,’ He Tian said. ‘The others are waiting.’

Guan Shan’s eyes flicked up. ‘How many?’

‘Five or six.’

‘And they’re all like …’ A vague gesture to the car. To He Tian. They were a dual package, weren’t they?

‘Some,’ He Tian agreed. ‘Some of them build them themselves.’

‘What about the police?’

‘What about them?’ He Tian said, droll. 

‘What if you get caught racing?’

‘Why would we get caught?’ 

There was a pause.

‘Of course,’ Guan Shan muttered, realising. ‘Rules don’t fucking apply to people like you.’

He Tian let out a stuttered breath of air, a laugh, a sigh of derisive irritation, hastily shed. ‘We link into the police radios. We keep to the back streets and know most of the patrols. We’re not privileged rich kids above the law, Guan Shan. We just aren’t idiots.’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘You’re not an idiot, either.’

‘Fuck off.’

He Tian laughed, tugged long fingers through ink-black hair. He ground his cigarette beneath the heel of a combat boot, the small, starry glow like a small sun extinguished.

‘Come on,’ He Tian said. ‘Fight or flight.’

‘Which is which?’

‘Oh, _clever_ ,’ said He Tian, dark eyes glinting like the slow swing of lighthouse’s torch beaming around his irises.

A quiet, dark feeling of pleasure welled at that compliment, a tide filling out beneath a new moon. Guan Shan wanted to pull it back in, tug on the moon and tell it not to let that feeling rise inside him—not to _let it._

He swallowed, throat scratchy. The night air was thick and close and lingered on his tongue. 

‘What do I get?’

He Tian inclined his head, slightly. ‘I thought you were repaying me.’

‘You called me,’ Guan Shan said. ‘You asked me. That wasn’t calling in a favour. That was a request.’

He Tian nodded, considering. ‘All right. Whatever you want, then.’

‘Whatever I want?’

He Tian said, ‘Whatever you want.’

* * *

Exhaust fumes crept around the cars like morning mist in the darkness, and Guan Shan could see only the the low headlights of the other cars beside them, shining bright onto the start line, a score into a dirt track that led out onto the main streets of the city.

‘Fastest one to the end point,’ He Tian told him, clicking on his belt, gesturing for Guan Shan to do the same as he fiddled with the lights and shook the gear stick. ‘The route is the driver’s choice. Own the race; own the city.’

Guan Shan felt the truth of that lingering, not cloying, but sliding down his throat like cool tea on a sticky-heat hot day, the truth of it settling calm and cool and unchangeable. He wondered what it must be like to own a city. He Tian made it sound like it was possible.

‘Do you have an advantage?’ Guan Shan asked, meaning if his car was better; if he knew the city better than the others; if he’d get a headstart. 

He Tian said, ‘You.’

He Tian was looking at him, and Guan Shan turned away. ‘You overestimate me,’ he muttered, dry, face burning. His heart was beating loud in his ears, a cacophonous echo that seemed to be making something lyrical with the sound of engines and the loudness of the silence in the car. No radio; words spoken from low in the throat. He felt feverish and hot-cold and his throat was closing up around the charged air.  

There was movement up ahead, a figure on his phone, a dark silhouette making gestures at the cars, profile caught by the headlights.

‘Any second now,’ He Tian murmured. His fingers drummed around the gear stick—and then, slowly, then they moved.

Every muscle in Guan Shan’s thigh tightened at the touch, the idle rest of a palm above his knee. He said, ‘That’s not the gear stick.’

He Tian said, ‘You’re my good luck.’

He wanted to tell him that they had school tomorrow, the last few days before graduation and summer and university that Guan Shan didn’t know how he’d gotten a place for; that He Tian better not fucking flip them when the alloys caught the curb and leave them crushed beneath the hood and gasping on each other’s blood and broke bones. But instead: ‘You don’t need to— _touch_ me for that.’

He Tian’s thumb brushed over the slope of Guan Shan’s knee. ‘Do you know what a contact relic is?’

‘A what?’ Guan Shan gritted out. He had his eyes closed. The touch was maddening and awful and left him with no agency. He wanted to shift forward and let He Tian’s hand slide upwards. He wanted to break his fingers so he couldn’t even grasp the gear stick.

‘A contact relic. It’s something that has been touched by something holy and is made holy itself.’

The air was shivering around them. Guan Shan could barely make out the figures in the other cars, anonymous shadows through tinted windows that were made out of the cars and made into them. Inside of them, it was easy to keep the driver and the car separate entities, each reliant on the other but not the same, and Guan Shan was reminded of that with every sweep of He Tian’s fingers across the dashboard and the air vents and the steering wheel, an old lover relearning a body.

‘Holy?’ Guan Shan echoed, incredulous. ‘Like, fuck, have you _seen_ me?’

He Tian’s look was arresting and absolute in its darkness. Guan Shan was impossibly aware of the hand, gentle, on his thigh. 

‘You think I haven’t?’ He Tian said, unsmiling.

The space between them was nothing—the red glow of a dashboard, a windscreen baring silhouettes and smoke and a bokeh of headlights and far-off street lamps where tarmac road began. The engine thrummed through the leather seats; Guan Shan dug his fingernails into the edges. There was something tangible about the space between two people sitting in a car at night, like being trapped in a glass bubble and forced to face each other and not look away; like this was a thing to _be faced_ , someone determined the victor—and someone else the loser. A fragile, framed battlefield in the still night.

It was almost difficult to breathe.

‘Ready?’ said He Tian, looking out the windscreen now, the figure outside holding up a torch, blinking at them. Guan Shan saw dark spots behind his eyes at the light. 

He Tian’s fingers wrapped back around the gear stick, foot down on the clutch, the engine growling steadily, the suspension on the wheels lifting as He Tian sought the biting point, the car sweetly responsive to his minute pressure, and the engine growing louder and louder, almost deafening and Guan Shan’s blood was singing with it and then— 

A flash—

A release—

Lurching— 

Gone.

* * *

Sitting in the passenger seat felt like watching a city being made with streaks of lights like blood vessels behind his eyes and engines roaring like gas burning and breaking into new suns and stars. The permanence of it disappeared; there was only only light and the engine and He Tian—and it felt like all it had ever been.

He Tian could drive. He was as sure of the tight press of the brake pedal and the precise turns of the wheel as he had been in anything in his life: sure of himself, sure of Guan Shan. Concentrated with an intensity that was frightening and hidden beneath some veneer of casual nonchalance just shy of arrogant; the delicate balance of his fingertips on the leather wheel—a pressure here, a slight right, a left, car responsive to every whim—the curve of a wrist over the gear stick, eyes that looked out beneath hooded lashes at a city spilling out before them and fleeing from them just as fast.

But this could not alter the truth that Guan Shan was sweating as he clung to the seat, a choked sound cut off in his throat as He Tian guided them too close between cars, sliding between lanes like it was made of oil and the roads were curved to allow its dark, shimmering slide. 

The other cars were ghosts, appearing in flashing moments down a parallel street or hovering at Guan Shan’s side at the lights; gone again and leaving them alone and conquering a city that seemed, suddenly, like their own. 

‘You’re quiet,’ He Tian said as they headed into a tunnel, lights blaring and too bright, curved wall blurring past too fast; a slip of He Tian’s too-light touch on the steering wheel and this would be over quickly. Guan Shan hadn’t realised what he was promising—what thing he was entrusting He Tian to hold by giving him this. Was this trusting him?

‘I’m just—’ Guan Shan swallowed, cringed at the sound of his voice, scratched like he’d been screaming. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘It’s fast, isn’t it?’

‘ _Fast_?’ Guan Shan choked. He could feel the pressure holding himself against the seat as the tunnel ended, dark, starless skies blooming out above them again, and the needle on the speedometer slipped higher. ‘You’re fucking— _suicidal_ , my _god_ —’

‘Nah,’ He Tian said. His voice was too calm. Everything outside was too fast. ‘If I was suicidal I’d let go of the steering—’

‘ _Don’t you fucking dare_.’

He Tian was grinning. ‘Scared?’

Guan Shan gripped the edges of the seat tighter as they hurtled across a bridge, city lights projecting mirages onto the lapping water; his nails would be leaving crescent moons in the leather. ‘I’m no fucking good to you as your stupid lucky relic if I’m dead,’ he said. 

The grin relaxed into a smile. ‘You’re not going to die. I’ll protect you. I’ve been doing this a while. My brother … he used to take me out when I was younger. Before we grew up, I guess.’

‘You’re only legal this year,’ Guan Shan said, but nothing more, and He Tian was quiet. Guan Shan realised what this was; when the world outside was too fast, everything else inside could be still enough for moments like these, trapped in some vortex where, after, you could pretend it didn’t happen. He Tian would whisper him his secrets and talk about his brother and, after, it was like it hadn’t been at all.

But that was okay. That was easy. Manageable. 

_I’ll protect you._

He Tian said, ‘I think the legality of the whole thing is redundant, don’t you?’

Guan Shan darted a glance at him, uncomfortable with taking his eyes off the road for too long, the strange assurance that if he kept watching he’d be okay and come out of this unscathed.

‘Is that your fancy way of saying _fuck the police_?’

He Tian shook his head, choked laughter hovering in the space between them. ‘Your mouth, I swear …’

‘Don’t say a fucking word about how my mother raised me.’

An arched brow as the car hummed into a crawl and grew still, waiting, at a red light. He Tian regarded it patiently, hands on the wheel, leaning forward to stare up at the light. It was easy to pretend this wasn’t a race when the other competitors were sprawled over the city streets, but Guan Shan could feel his blood hurtling through his veins and the pulse hammering in his wrists. 

‘I was thinking other things,’ He Tian said, ‘but I’d never say anything like that.’

Guan Shan opened his mouth in a retort, but a blue flash in the wing mirror caught his eye, and it was unmistakeable. 

Coldness swept over him, sharp and indiscriminate.

‘He Tian,’ he started.

‘I see them,’ said He Tian. The traffic light glared red. The car thrummed beneath them, and He Tian lifted his left foot slowly off the clutch, his right slowly pressing down on the accelerator, thumb brushing over the end of the handbrake in anticipation.

The lights were closer now. The police car was coming at them fast. They must have caught them somewhere else in the city—must have received a report over the radio. Guan Shan felt sick. What would he say to his mother?

‘He Tian—’

‘I’ve got it.’

‘ _He Tian_ , _for fuck’s sake—’_

A burst of green light, Guan Shan’s words bitten off as he was thrown back against the seat, engine a snarl as it shot down the street.

And then the sirens.

‘You said you didn’t get fucking caught!’ Guan Shan shouted, the police car close behind them in pursuit as He Tian flew through a cross-roads and a stop sign and a set of lights just turned red.

He Tian grinned at Guan Shan. There was a moment of stillness when there should have be nothing but speed and the ferocious force of a machine that didn’t seem built to stop. Guan Shan’s chest felt strange, twisting, seeing the outline of He Tian’s face lit up with street lights, the eyes wild and furious and beautiful in their darkness. The smile was undoing. 

‘I did,’ He Tian said, and then he was yanking the wheel down, handbrake pulled up, tendons in his wrist straining. 

Tyres screeched. Rubber burned. Guan Shan felt himself thrown against the window with the ninety-degree turn, the car shooting down a backstreet barely wide enough. Guan Shan would graze his knuckles on the building walls if he put his hand out the window, and the city lights were blotted out by washing lines and towered buildings leaning towards each other, a grove where wood and low-hanging fruit was shifted for mortar and concrete and old sheets stained by the smog, still damp with humid heat. 

He Tian was laughing; Guan Shan was seeing something new, and he didn’t know where to look; at the walls that loomed closer to them before they screeched around too-sharp corners, or the way He Tian’s face looked bloomed into a smile. 

He Tian said, ‘Not getting caught doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have a chase.’

* * *

Guan Shan could still feel the engine when he climbed out, doors lifting upwards, his legs trembling as he stumbled onto the pavement. He Tian didn’t laugh at him as he walked around the front of the car, fingers trailing the metal bonnet, and stopped inches from him.

The kiss was placed on the underside of Guan Shan’s jaw, a feathered drag of lips, warm like the hood of the car still growling idly outside of Guan Shan’s apartment block. It was the only barely-there touch: no vice-tight grip on his nape, no swipe of an unwanted tongue. It was a breath, really, an inhalation of the sweat that had slipped down his cheek as blue lights flashed in the wing mirrors. Quiet and reticent and careful and almost— _almost_ —sweet.

Guan Shan said, ‘What was that for?’ 

He Tian stepped back. Guan Shan almost— _almost_ —stepped forward. He felt those lips more than he had the last time, summer heat and a spilled water bottle leaking out like blood stains as it darkened the asphalt. That, then, had tasted like a rough handbrake turn and a skull knocked against the window. This felt like an idle engine, warm under his hand, and a car gliding through an empty green-light street at 3am. 

‘I just wanted to,’ He Tian said. ‘A thank you. You won me the race.’

‘So now you own the city?’

He Tian, minutely, shook his head. His hands were in curled fists. 

Something was souring in the pit of Guan Shan’s stomach when he said, ‘You own me?’

There was a moment of unquiet, heavy darkness, like the city had dipped for a moment, just to allow them this shared, pressing ache. And then He Tian started to smile, forlorn and lost and nothing like what it had been earlier. This was strained—desperately uncertain. This was new.

‘Didn’t you know?’ He Tian said, thumbnail dragged across his lower lip. He let it drop, limp. ‘You’ve only ever owned yourself, Guan Shan and … sometimes, I think, maybe, you’ve owned a part of me too.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157208873864/pursuit-tianshan-week-1).


	2. Dear One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Valentine's Day, chocolate-feeding, kissing, angst, the boys are 17/18, alcohol

‘We can’t all have Egyptian fucking cotton for our sheets.’

‘It was a toss between that and silk.’

There’s a pause, like Guan Shan’s caught between a moment of disbelief and thinking that, perhaps, He Tian is being entirely serious. Except He Tian sees the blush that begins to colour his skin. Guan Shan has a way of turning his eyes away when he doesn’t want to be seen, like if he doesn’t look at someone, they can’t look back.

 _Look at me_ , He Tian thinks. _I want to see you._

He watches, intrigued, as the flush spread across Guan Shan’s cheeks like spilled paint, a red sun climbing its way above a flat horizon.

‘What are you thinking?’ He Tian says, tilting his head.

Guan Shan ducks. ‘Nothing.’

It’s like a game, trying to catch his eye, like trying to catch the diaphanous skitter of moonlight on water in your palm. He Tian is eager to try, because trying to catch something is just as synonymous with chasing it.

‘Tell me,’ he says. And then, lower, softer, a breath, ‘Please?’

It has an interesting effect, tugging that flush around to the back of Guan Shan’s neck, like He Tian has lain a hand there, and kept it warm, and left a closing mark. Guan Shan’s look is determinedly not on him now, and he’s moving away, shadow darkening other places.

He Tian has lost this bout.

‘I thought we were playing Xbox,’ Guan Shan says, walking over to pick up a controller. His fingers, long and nimble as a pianist’s, brush over the buttons. He Tian remembers the feel of that hand in his when they were fifteen, the bundled up shirt a bloodied mess between their palms, his own fingers curling over Guan Shan’s as the moment stretched, fell deeper into a silence that He Tian had felt like he was breathing in.

He Tian wanders over, and switches the TV on. The console springs to life with a glow. He picks up the second controller.

‘Come,’ he says, moving back to sit at the end of the bed, his legs crossed.

Guan Shan’s look is sour, and uncertain. ‘Last time we played out there.’ His head nods towards the living area, beyond the closed door.

‘Yeah, well,’ says He Tian.

Guan Shan sits, gingerly, beside him on the bed. He keeps his feet planted on the floor, ready to propel himself into escape. He smells of watermelon bubblegum and clean sweat and something salient and sharp that mirrors the angles of his face, high cheekbones, an unyielding, pinching brow. His lips. Outside, the weather is teasing at stinging minus temperatures, but the warmth that sneaks off Guan Shan is soft and quiet.

‘What do you think I’m going to do to you?’ says He Tian, syrupy, quiet humour cloying the edges of the words.

Guan Shan shrugs them off while the game loads up on the screen. He says, ‘I know what you’re capable of, you fucker.’

The sound of He Tian’s laughter echoes off the high ceiling and the bare walls. He remembers Guan Shan coming over in middle school, when what lingered between them was in its infancy, a new poison starting to spread sweetly between shared veins, tributaries splitting and crossing into the estuaries of a river laid bare and uncrossed between them.

‘I still can’t believe you live here,’ Guan Shan had said. ‘It’s so fucking empty.’

And He Tian had sucked on a cigarette and said, ‘Easier to pack up and leave.’

‘Why would you need to leave?’

He Tian shrugged. ‘Just in case.’

He remembers the look on Guan Shan’s face, caustic and confused and stubborn and _having_ to give up. He Tian isn’t the person to keep pushing, closer to some edge of discovery. He’s the person who digs his heels into wet soil and says, _I dare you._ A brick wall you run at and try to break with your shoulder **—** and it ends up breaking you.

Guan Shan, He Tian thinks, is the person who keeps running and breaking himself anyway. He Tian hasn’t decided if it’s because Guan Shan can’t see the danger in it, if he can’t help himself, or if he likes the feel of bone and the fragile framework of a human body falling in on itself.

He Tian hasn’t the heart to tell him to stop trying.

‘Try not to die this time,’ Guan Shan says, as they load up a save.

‘You never defend me,’ He Tian passes back. ‘You’re supposed to be my comrade.’

‘I think you’re pretty fucking capable of looking after yourself.’

He Tian catches the glance, the cursory swipe of Guan Shan’s gaze as their avatars step out into a wasteland, rifles head aloft. He Tian accepts the comment with a small, warm pleasure.

‘I don’t know about that,’ He Tian says evenly. ‘Everyone needs help sometimes.’

Guan Shan grunts as an enemy team bursts from behind the skeleton of an old Jeep, bullets firing. His fingers are quick and fierce on the controller; sometimes He Tian has died from staring.

‘You’re looking for compliments,’ Guan Shan mutters, and this time he doesn’t look at He Tian. His body shifts, unconsciously, with the fast jerks of his avatar.

‘Come on,’ says He Tian, moving his own, carefully, to crouch behind the shield of a car door. ‘I know you better than to hope for that.’

There’s a pause, and then a burst of rapid fire and gunshots on the screen. Guan Shan says, ‘That I’ll help you or compliment you?’

He Tian shrugs. ‘Both,’ he says, following Guan Shan’s avatar in a sprint across a patch of wasteland territory, and up the rotting ladder of an old watchtower. The sky in the game is yellow-tinged with a nuclear fallout, and the birds fly strangely, like their bodies are slightly too heavy for their wings.

‘I helped you,’ says Guan Shan. ‘And your head’s big enough already.’

‘Helped me?’ says He Tian. ‘When?’

Guan Shan sweeps the landscape beneath them with a pair of binoculars. Everything on the screen is still, and silent. Their avatars’ heartbeats thrum through the speakers and fill the room like lifeblood swarming through old pipes. He Tian can feel it in his throat.

‘Today,’ says Guan Shan, eventually. ‘With those girls. Now.’

He Tian looks at him, controller limp in his hands. ‘ _This_ is helping me?’

‘Isn’t it?’ says Guan Shan, glancing at him. ‘Being with me gave you an excuse not to be with them.’

At the words, the controller falls into He Tian’s lap.

Their avatars are still on the screen, standing in the watchtower that creaks about them in a dry, arid wind.

‘You think this is an excuse,’ He Tian says.

‘Huh?’

He Tian rubs at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. ‘You think—you think I took you up on this just so I had an excuse not to be with some random girls on Valentine’s Day?’

Something in his tone makes Guan Shan swear quietly and hit the pause button, a menu flashing up in front of them. He throws his controller behind him on the bed.

He says, ‘I mean—I— _Yeah_. Yeah, I fucking did.’

He has his lower lip drawn in between his teeth. He’d gotten it pierced last year, on his sixteenth birthday. It was a distraction. His tongue had worried at it incessantly those first few days, itchy and smarting as it healed, lips glistening, slightly swollen. _Would they taste of gunmetal?_ He Tian had wondered. What would it be like to set your teeth around the ring and _tug_?

‘But you’re here,’ He Tian says, slowly. ‘You actually came here. If it was just an excuse, you saving my back, why not just lie? Why follow through on the—the illusion?’

There is a moment, where He Tian forgets the game is paused, so he mistakes the heavy sound of breathing for an avatar and not Guan Shan’s breath rushing from him in distinct, angry bursts; he mistakes the sound of the pulse in his ears for the beating of a false, thrumming heart.

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian starts.

‘I thought it was—If you were alone it would—It’d just be _pathetic_ , all right?’

He Tian bites the inside of his cheek, hard enough to sting sharply, then aching dull like fading anaesthetic. ‘Mm.’ He leans back on his hands. ‘If you wanted to hang out with me, you could have just asked.’

Guan Shan’s face is flaming. ‘I didn’t—What? That’s not—’ He has his arms crossed. He’s staring at the floor.

‘You know I wouldn’t mind,’ He Tian says, enjoying himself, a warm flush of pleasure that feels like being sun-caught through the gap between curtains. ‘You know I’d say yes. You don’t need to pretend with me.’

Guan Shan’s throat clicks as he swallows. ‘You always talk like—’

‘Like?’

‘Like you’re saying one thing and meaning another.’

He Tian blinks lazily. ‘Does that confuse you?’

Guan Shan pushes himself off the bed. ‘For _fuck_ —Why do you have to _do that_?’ he says, ragged, running a hand through close-shaven hair. ‘Can’t you just—be fucking _normal_ for once? Can’t we just play video games and eat junk food and not care about the fact that you’re whoever the fuck knows _you_ are and I’m just …’

He Tian raises an eyebrow, wondering what, exactly, lies at the end of that particular sentence.

‘You seem conflicted,’ he says. ‘Anything I can help with?’

Guan Shan points a finger at him, and says, ‘Don’t.’

Outside, it’s snowing, whiteness falling in a muffled white blanket. The sky is a stygian darkness as evening settles, clouds gathering and draping around the city thick and slow and in no hurry to leave.

It’s supposed to add something muted and mulling about the air; it’s supposed to soften the bite of wind chill and a too-empty sky. Inside, barricaded by thick windows and thicker walls, there’s nothing left of it. It is only darkness. The glow of the TV screen, still hovered on pause, lays itself across the map of Guan Shan’s face, painted sharp and exquisite with light, scorn filling in the shadows.

The look he’s giving He Tian is a familiar one, angrily, mulishly reluctant. It’s a look that says for him to say anything other than _no_ in this moment would be admitting to some deep cavernous fault within the void of himself that is yawning and showing all its teeth.

Fun fairs and roses seem very, very far away in this moment.

‘And if I wanted to be with those girls?’ He Tian asks, testing. ‘If I actually would have preferred it? What if being with you wasn’t _actually_ better?’

Guan Shan’s expression shutters. ‘Then I guess I fucked up.’ And then he adds, unexpectedly, ‘But I don’t think I did.’

A smile tugs at He Tian’s lips; the sudden confidence is endearing. He Tian says, ‘No. I don’t think you did, either.’

Guan Shan stands there, flaring like a beacon. The conflict is plain on his face, torn and scornful and hating what he wants. He Tian knows what it’s like to be hated; he knows more what it’s like to be wanted. Being hated because he’s wanted is still new, and strange, and it’s sharp and sweet on his tongue and makes him too aware of how his heart throbs while he’s a victim of that strained desire.

‘Wait here,’ he says, pulling himself off the bed and padding into the kitchen. He uncaps two bottles of fridge-cold beer and grabs the boxes from the counter.

In the bedroom, Guan Shan is still standing where He Tian left him, arms wrapped around himself, electric light hovering on peach skin that is coloured and bruises just as well.

‘What’s that?’ Guan Shan says, jerking his chin, brows drawn in.

‘ _Those girls_ got me chocolates—’

‘’Course they did.’

‘Help me with them?’ He Tian asks, climbing back on the bed.

Guan Shan lingers there, and then his fingers are wrapping around an offered beer bottle, and He Tian watches as his throat works around a mouthful. Guan Shan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, pauses, and then sits back down.

‘They’re homemade,’ Guan Shan says, looking at the boxes. There’s an abiding line between his brows. He Tian wishes he could know what it means. Anger? Irritation? Jealousy? Does he wish _those girls_ had given him something like this too? The thought sparks uncomfortably inside of He Tian.

‘Not quite junk food,’ he says, beer cold and bitter on his tongue. ‘But I’ll try and be normal enough for you.’

‘That wasn’t **—** I didn’t mean that. I don’t, like, _want_ you to be like that.’

‘You said you did.’

Guan Shan closes his eyes. ‘I said that because **—** because I can’t understand things that aren’t like _me._ ’

He Tian arches a brow. ‘Normal doesn’t exactly sound like _you_ , you know.’

‘I can’t understand things that aren’t **—** aren’t what I’m _used_ to.’

‘And that’s what you want?’ He Tian asks. ‘Something that you’re _used to_? Something that’s easy?’

Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘We haven’t had easy since fucking _middle school_.’

It makes He Tian laugh **—** that conviction, the wry tone that says Guan Shan doesn’t mind what middle school was, or what He Tian turned it into. Acerbic and antagonistic and biting **—** bruises and ruthless mouths and something darkly needing. The tone feels, almost, like forgiveness.

‘Yeah,’ He Tian says. He pulls off one of the box lids. They’re pretty and patterned and He Tian should feel guilty but he doesn’t. Icing has been laced across the chocolates in sprawling lines, and he thinks the characters spell out _Dear One._

He picks one, bites into it, and the small sound that comes from the back of his throat is helpless.

Guan Shan startles at it. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s good,’ He Tian says, swallowing.

Guan Shan bites at his lip ring. ‘What does it taste like?’

There’s a pause, but it doesn’t last long. He Tian doesn’t deliberate. Never, really, has done. He holds the chocolate between his fingers, and says, ‘Open wide.’

He Tian is aware of the silence more than anything. Guan Shan is still on the bed, mouth slowly moving off the neck of the bottle. He could have sworn, or pushed away, but instead He Tian watches Guan Shan deliberate and consider, lashes drawn low over his eyes that turn golden in sunlight.

And then he’s leaning forward, and his teeth are just short of He Tian’s fingers, and he’s pulling the rest of the chocolate from his grasp with the gentlest of holds.

The sight of it tugs at the loose strings of He Tian’s mind, easily pulled, collapsing into something heated. Guan Shan’s breath on He Tian’s fevered fingers tease the sight into something of an almost-future, where Guan Shan’s lips curve into a needling, plaintive ‘o’, pupils dark with the offering.

The image of Guan Shan’s face tear-stained and ruinous creeps into his mind, arms in defence across his face, hoarse shouts ripping themselves from his lips. Then, He Tian hadn’t known at all what to say, a smile slipping from his mouth. This is the second time, and he will gladly rewrite that memory for this one.

‘You’re right,’ says Guan Shan, picking another from the box. ‘They’re good.’

He isn’t looking at He Tian when he holds the chocolate between his fingers. His elbow is crooked. He Tian will have to lean forward for it.

‘Here,’ Guan Shan says, voice thick.

He Tian falters. He’s betraying his own rules **—** the deliberation, the hesitation. But he can’t help it. He knows, sometimes, how Guan Shan feels when he’s around him, like He Tian is a small bottle of acid with holes pricked into the lid, and Guan Shan is bracing himself to be burnt if he shakes it too hard. But now He Tian feels like he’s holding the bottle, and if he takes what he’s being offered his skin will scar and not heal.

He isn’t sure if he’ll mind having Guan Shan’s mark on him, given in spite or not.

He rests a hand on Guan Shan’s thigh as he leans in, feeling wiry muscle clench and tighten beneath his touch.

He swallows blindly, oblivious to taste, destitute of everything but what he can feel this is becoming.

‘And this one?’ He Tian says, holding another.

Guan Shan pauses. Leans forward. His breath is warm against He Tian’s fingers; as he takes the chocolate between his teeth, the brush of his lips is so slight as to not even exist. He Tian feels the hair rise up on the back of his neck.

Guan Shan pulls a face when he chews. ‘Liquor. Champagne, maybe.’

‘You don’t like it?’

‘Anyone who says they do is a fucking liar.’

‘Why’s that, then?’ He Tian asks, laughing.

He doesn’t think Guan Shan means to be, but he realises that Guan Shan is _funny_ sometimes—that he’s someone who can make him laugh with honesty. The knowledges settles in him with a certainty that is just shy of fear. He knows he will never make Guan Shan laugh with his lies.

‘Mixing ethanol with chocolate,’ Guan Shan is saying. ‘It’s poison. It’s ruining a good thing.’

‘Is it?’ says He Tian. He grows pensive. ‘But they’re both life’s pleasures. Some people think they’re aphrodisiacs.’ He lifts his gaze. ‘Isn’t there something intriguing about being able to taste that on your tongue?’

Guan Shan’s eyes have grown dark, the russet colour slipping into something like spilled wine in the pitch room. He Tian can see the hiccoughy rise of breath at his throat, each small, hitched inhalation like Guan Shan is stumbling over himself and doesn’t know how to stop.

He Tian’s fingers reach for another chocolate. It’s Guan Shan’s turn, but Guan Shan doesn’t notice as he takes it between his teeth, the wetness of his lips ghosting against He Tian’s fingertips. Guan Shan’s head is bent over like a benediction, his lips pressing prayers into the creases and grooves of He Tian’s fingers, the touch of that quiet, damp heat something He Tian would sin a thousand times to feel again.

He Tian hears the small sound of the shell breaking apart, and Guan Shan’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. He looks at He Tian like he has made a revelation.

‘What is it?’ He Tian says.

‘Strawberry,’ Guan Shan says, and then, almost unbidden, ‘My favourite.’

‘Oh.’

‘What?’

He Tian says, ‘That’s my favourite too.’

Guan Shan hesitates. ‘These were for you,’ he says. ‘They **—** the girls would shit themselves if they knew you let me … I feel bad eating them.’

There’s a beat, and He Tian says, ‘I don’t.’

A string, somewhere, is cut.

The kiss is a clash of teeth and lips sliding together, messy with spit and chocolate and sugary fondant shared on their tongues, digging in each other’s mouths like there could be something more than this surface, manufactured sweetness, moaning like they have, together, found the real thing.

He Tian feels like a switchboard, every button shifted up and singing bright with light; his blood is swarming and pumped beneath his skin and he knows that nothing the girls were offering could be like this. Tasting their chocolate on Guan Shan’s tongue and his gums and the cracks of his lips and the metal of the ring so saccharine sweet is the only thing for which he will be grateful to them.

The fist is a tight grip on the front of He Tian’s t-shirt, tugging him close and not close enough, and there is a struggle, internal, physically, before he can pull away, heaving.

‘Wait, wait, wait,’ he says, pulling in frantic breaths.

Guan Shan’s look is thick with uncertainty, like he’s bracing for a blow, his lips dark and wet. He Tian’s hands are still fisted in the cotton of Guan Shan’s hoody. His thumb is swiping across the cold metal of the zip.

‘You don’t want this?’ Guan Shan says.

He Tian says, ‘I was supposed to ask you this time.’

A shiver of silence. Snow falls, still, outside, and He Tian thinks the sound of it falling should be loud. ‘Seriously?’ Guan Shan says, and doesn’t wait for a reply.

The kiss, this time, is long and slow and searching, a storm calmed and pushing a warm breeze through torn territory. Clothing, still, is the only barrier, and Guan Shan is so warm when He Tian slips a hand around the back of his neck, another on the flat space of his waist, thumb brushing over too-soft skin like it is keeping a pulse, a beat for what this is becoming between them.

Breathing grows difficult, and desperate, and it is ragged when they part, bowed into each other. Guan Shan’s forehead lies on the sloping crook of He Tian’s shoulder, and He Tian cannot help but press his lips into the pulsing hollow of Guan Shan’s throat and murmur, ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear One.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157268851488/dear-one-tianshan-week-2).


	3. Hunger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: angst, semi-poetry, letters to mo guan shan

You,

You scowled at me in the hallway and I could only look at your lips, cracked and lined and red as a sky in a nuclear fallout.

I thought, for a moment, that you might have been looking at mine.

 

* * *

 

To Redhead,

I saw you fight and it was bloody-knuckled and you moved like you were used to bracing, and flinching, and hiding when a fist shadowed the pale skin of your face. You moved like there was a fire and you were breathing smoke in your nose, and I thought that perhaps the gaps between your teeth would lick of charcoal and graphite and leave black stains on the eggshell underside of my wrist.

 

* * *

 

For Red,

You stood in my home and your shadow darkened the window where I stood and you shied from my cigarette skin. You gleamed pale and lambent in the city lights and your hair flamed like you were a comet and I was detritus floating in your space.

One day, I would like to be in your orbit.

 

* * *

 

Dear Don’t Close Mountain,

I saw your name today on a board and it tasted funny on my tongue. I stretched it to four syllables so it would last longer and it meant I could savour it. I think it was a poor decision.

I touched my tongue with your tongue and it was wet and warm and didn’t surprise me until you started crying. I wondered, after, what those tears might taste like, too. I am sorry I am trying to eat you alive. I’m sorry I left you bruised and broken and scarred your skin in ways that I might see if I looked beneath your clothing; I’m sorry I left you bruised and broken and scarred your skin in ways I couldn’t see.

I would change mine for yours except mine would swallow you like acid and you are still almost whole.

 

* * *

 

Dearest Mo Guan Shan,

I’m polluting your flowerbeds with my cigarette ends. I would like to taste the thing that you once made me, and I have tried and failed because I didn’t know what you put in it that I couldn’t see.

You put something in it, didn’t you? Maybe it was the spilled bottle. I almost asked you but you were pale in my jacket and my blood was soaking your veins, and I could see I was stretching you thin enough to see your blood and my veins and how you trembled with every shivering heartbeat that could pulse into my mouth.

But you would never let me get that close. Would you.

 

* * *

 

Shan,

I have never been hungry before, and now I am made of caves and voids and holes that are starless spaces begging to be loaded, niches and alcoves of light that are slick with petrol fluid and ash is dangling between my lips.

I have never hungered before but it’s going to set me on fire, and I can live with your fever but you can’t live with my flames.

I am inked with shadows and they will taste like diesel but you can feast from me if you want, every unadorned, unguarded part of me that will rise to your mouth. I know you couldn’t bear the taste of me; you cannot take the sound and the sight and the bare feel of me.

I will trade touches for taste. My stomach is a cavern and you have pulled the blood from my veins like it is string.

I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness but I am a benediction and a sin and I will take anything.

I have never starved before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157286839639/hunger-tianshan-week-3).


	4. Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: 5+1, allusions to violence, he tian's protective abilities transcend space and time, high school

**I.**  

 

It’s the second day of high school and Guan Shan’s locker is leaking petrol.

It ruins the jacket his mum bought him for his birthday, and it stains the textbooks he bought for the new year, and it soaks the homework he finished after school the night before.

He thinks that he doesn’t need a match licking at his stained fingers to set himself on fire—there is something, enough of something, burning already inside him.

He Tian does it, first, by handing in his homework as Guan Shan’s, and when the bell rings at the end of the lesson Guan Shan is a furnace with sparks flying from the skin tags of his bitten-down fingernails.

‘Why did you do that?’ Guan Shan says, pushing He Tian into hallway alcove. He Tian goes with the motion willingly, feet stepping back, and Guan Shan can only realise after that his hand had laid on He Tian’s chest, and it had been hard, and warm, and he had let it linger too long.

After the summer, He Tian is taller again. He stands out amid of sea of faces and uniforms, again. It has been made, again, remarkably easy for Guan Shan to feel small.

‘Do what?’ He Tian says, eyes dancing, like he has missed this. That look tugs at Guan Shan like an IV drip pulled out at the wrong angle, and he knows that soon he’ll see blood welling and feel the after-moments of stinging skin.

‘I didn’t do the work,’ Guan Shan says, ‘so you’re covering for me. That doesn’t make sense.’

He Tian says, ‘We both know you did the work, Guan Shan.’

‘How the fuck would you know that?’

‘You smell like a bonfire.’

Guan Shan looks at him, and takes a step back. The space between them is close and warm with lingering summer heat, trapped in the murky shadow of their bodies. He doesn’t like that He Tian can smell him, can breathe in the taste of him. Perhaps, he wonders, if he set himself on fire, he might bring He Tian into the flames too.

‘Is it She Li?’ says He Tian, lowly, head cocked. ‘Is he bothering you?’

‘You know he left,’ Guan Shan mutters, arms wrapped around himself.

‘But someone like him doesn’t just leave.’

Guan Shan knows this. He knows that people like She Li are a weighted, lingering sixth sense that clings to shadowed corridors and hovers behind you in a scratched mirror. He knows that they settle themselves down in the bones of others and force their feet into their shoes, and he knows that She Li would walk around in them very, very well.

He knows that He Tian, if he had gone somewhere else for high school—if he had not gone at all—would too.

‘Stop trying to fucking help me,’ he tells He Tian, gritting his teeth. ‘I hate having to owe people.’

He Tian props himself against a wall, the paint dry and dusted and cracking over the brick. He leans against the world and its foundations like they have been built to hold him up, and sometimes is enough for Guan Shan to believe it.

‘I never asked for anything,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan says, ‘You never have to.’

* * *

 

**II.**

 

‘This seems to be coming something of a routine.’

Guan Shan is crouched against the wall, and it is all he can do not to put his head in his hands. The alleyway smells of damp concrete and spilled beer and piss, and the evening is hot enough that smog is clinging to the back of his throat. He hasn’t managed to clean all the petrol from under his fingertips.

He Tian, shadow darkening the mouth of the alley, makes Guan Shan feel dirty.

‘I didn’t ask you to fucking help me,’ Guan Shan spits at him. He’ll pull himself up in a moment, but for now he can feel the workings of a bruise spreading across his ribcage, and breathing is needle-sharp. He can feel the shape of knuckles on his sternum, and blood is drying at the corners of his mouth like rust on copper pipes.

‘Some friend I’d be if I didn’t,’ says He Tian, walking over, and dusting himself down. His knuckles are slightly grazed from the grate of bared teeth catching on the skin, but he is otherwise unruffled, slick and collected, the pinnacle student. It’s a little sickening, that such a thing exists within the tight confines of his skin, and that Guan Shan is one of the only ones that can see it.

Guan Shan stares at He Tian, shoulders dropped low, eyes lifted through a bowed head. ‘Friend,’ he says, with intent.

‘Oh, don’t start that on me.’

‘Start what?’

He Tian waves hand. ‘That.’

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘You were going to, and I’m telling you: don’t.’

Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘Don’t talk about whether or not we’re friends?’

He Tian sighs. He looks down at Guan Shan. ‘I thought you were done letting people knock you about.’

‘It was four on one,’ Guan Shan mutters. He can feel it on the base of his spine where he a foot had landed so exactly. ‘Not much I could fucking do.’

‘Until I came.’

Guan Shan’s gaze flashes on him.

‘I can handle them for you,’ He Tian says. ‘Get them to stop fucking with you.’ There’s an insouciant lift of his shoulders. ‘I got you into this.’

‘No,’ Guan Shan says. ‘ _I_ got me into this. You just—cleaned up my messes.’

‘Like I said, I can do it ag—’

‘You said you would help me,’ Guan Shan says, quietly. ‘Not do everything _for_ me.’

He tugs a hand through his hair, scalp stinging, skull aching. The burn makes his eyes water. His thighs are shivering as he crouches, and he makes himself stand, legs smarting. He’s nothing like He Tian, he knows that, but they are as darkened as each other when they stand together like this, and he knows that everyone looks the same in the shadows. He knows, if their blood was spilled and mingled, that it would look the same, too.

‘Then I’ll help you,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan knows that their darkness is the same; he knows that the brightness in He Tian’s eyes will always be unmatched.

* * *

 

**III.**

 

His head is spinning and his mouth is burning with liquor. His throat feels like it has been stripped raw, and words are beyond him entirely. Everything is distorted and cottony; the moon is low and swollen and lambent, spilling out onto the waterfront of the quay, and he wants to taste cigarettes and feel a palm on the back of his neck, and the light is suddenly so bright, rising to meet him, and so dark.

He hits his head on the way down, blunt and numbing. Summer heat doesn’t linger in the water, and he’s mistaking the river for air and choking on lungfuls of moonlight, and the burning doesn’t last long.

There’s a feeling like iron around his chest, a pressure, concrete on the back of his skull, and something solid on his sternum. River water runs from the side of his mouth, and the air has never tasted so clean.

‘You fucking idiot,’ he hears, murky, words drifting to him through some filter.

After a while, everything, like water between his fingers, escapes him.

When he wakes, there is something featherlight brushing on his face, and in the darkness, He Tian is sleeping inches from him. He can make out the planes of He Tian’s face that are angled harshly in the shadows. His dark lashes brushing high cheeks. His lips pressed in sleep. Guan Shan had wondered, in middle school, what He Tian’s bed would feel like to lie on.

Guan Shan looks away. He is wearing a thorned crown on the inside of his head, and his limbs are heavy and clumsy when he tries to stand. He succeeds in knocking the water to the floor, glass cup rolling into the floor lamp, and suddenly there is light flooding the empty room. Everything now stares in through those windows. He doesn’t know how He Tian can stand it.

‘You should be asleep.’

Guan Shan turns, holding his weight up on the dresser. His tongue is thick and takes a while to work. ‘What happened?’

He Tian’s gaze is glittering. There is a dry quirk to his lips, and sitting up in his bed, arms loose around drawn up knees, he looks somehow older. It makes Guan Shan feel stupid, and young, and drunk.

‘You drank too much and fell into the quay.’

Guan Shan swallows. He can feel the scratched, fallow dryness of his throat, the way his head is protesting at the light. He Tian’s words ring unbearably true in this too-empty, too-large space that feels suddenly so small. Whatever the distance is laid waste and bare between them, Guan Shan feels like it will never be enough; always a too-tight collar around his throat, fingers brushing into the pale, gleaming underside of his wrist.

‘I . . .’

‘Am a fucking idiot?’ He Tian says, suddenly sharp. ‘Drank so much you needed _me_ to pull you out? _Fuck_ , Guan Shan, if I hadn’t been there . . .’

‘Why were you there?’ Guan Shan says. He knows it’s loaded with accusation, but self-defence and rationality is escaping him. He doesn’t want to think about what lingered there—about the _ifs._ About the truth of what it means that he might be lying at the bottom of the quay while people drank and smoked and stared down at the brackish shape of his body. And that He Tian is the thing, the only entity, that would have prevented that.

‘Believe it or not,’ He Tian begins, ‘I actually have friends to hang out with at weekends so I’m not getting drunk on my own.’

 _Friends?_ Guan Shan wants to ask, because he knows that boundaries hover around He Tian like an ozone layer, and anyone who might get close enough to it would find themselves singed.

He says, instead, ‘I wasn’t alone. I was . . .’

The silence is salient, irked and jutting out sharply in the space between.

‘I was with someone,’ he grits out. ‘And then I wasn’t.’

‘You were on a date,’ He Tian surmises, after a moment. His eyes are still. ‘With a girl?’

Questions, sometimes, are asked when they are not.

‘ _Does it matter_?’

‘Guess not,’ says He Tian. He leans back against the pillows. His teeth, lips stretched back from them, are lit up by fluorescent lights and electric billboards. ‘You ended up in my bed at the end of it. Everyone’s a winner.’

* * *

 

**IV.**  

 

By the fourth time, Guan Shan learns to expect. It’s dangerous, this dependency, but he can’t help but wait for the solid presence at his back. He’s not stupid enough, he knows, to throw himself into the face of it because he’s waiting for He Tian to catch him. He can’t trust enough that He Tian won’t drop him, and he doesn’t know how long this will last.

It feels like He Tian is giving him everything, and he is giving nothing back. Retribution, he knows, comes to all.

Right now, it feels like it is coming in the form of the highschoolers who stand in front of him. They are sneering, and still, and Guan Shan is waiting for the first punch.

‘Go on then,’ he says. Summer is closing and chill on his skin like leaf skitter, but there is a heat creeping up the back of his neck that he can feel like an itch. She Li worked with words before it came to this. But She Li isn’t here, and they aren’t as smart, and he knows that _this_ is all they know.

In many ways, this is easier. In many ways, this will hurt less. This does not mean it is easy, or that it will not hurt.

‘Eager to get yourself fucked, aren’t you?’

Guan Shan grins at the guy who said it, and it feels strange in his mouth. It feels like He Tian’s smiles must look.

‘You offering?’ Guan Shan says.

The guy’s face screws up. One of them spits on the floor and mutters something that, once, would have made Guan Shan’s face burn up. Now, it flashes over him in a rush. This, he knows, cannot hurt.

‘She Li still sending people to do his dirty work?’ Guan Shan says. ‘This is what this whole fucking thing has been about, hasn’t it? Fuck, it was _middle school_. Didn’t realise I mattered that much to him.’

One of them falters, ringed fingers tugging on an earlobe. The hand drops. ‘Nah, kid,’ he says. ‘This ain’t about _you_. This is about that other one.’

Guan Shan goes still. ‘Other one?’

‘Tall. Dark hair. Went to your middle school.’

‘He Tian?’ Guan Shan pushes out.

There’s an exchange of looks. ‘That his name?’

‘His name doesn’t fucking matter,’ Guan Shan dismisses. ‘What the fuck has He Tian got to do with this? You’ve had an issue with me this whole fucking time—not him.’

One of them rocks back on his heels. ‘There’s your answer, kid. Get to you, we get to him.’

The voice comes clear and low: ‘And how do you plan on getting to _me_ , exactly?’

As one, they turn. The swagger is phenomenal, the loping gait of a leopard entering its den. This is his territory, and everyone in it is fair game. He Tian’s lips are pressed in an unhappy smile, and he is somehow baring all his teeth.

‘You He Tian?’

He Tian comes to a rest at Guan Shan’s side, solid and unwavering. He makes breathing easier. ‘Who’s asking?’

‘The ones coming to collect for She Li.’

‘Keeps grudges, doesn’t he?’ He Tian says lowly, tracing a thumb across his lower lip in thought. ‘Seems like a waste of energy to me.’ His arm lays heavy and secure around Guan Shan’s shoulders. ‘I’d rather he put it elsewhere than antagonising my friends. I’m sure you’ve got other things to be doing.’

They stare at He Tian and Guan Shan.

‘You said your name was He?’ one of them says. ‘You related to He Di?’

‘He’s my brother.’

The silence between them shivers. The weight around Guan Shan’s shoulders feels heavier.

‘And your old man . . .’

He Tian says, ‘I think you boys know the answer to that question.’

‘Right. I guess . . . I think there’s been a . . .  misunderstanding then.’

‘I’m glad you’ve seen that,’ He Tian says. His hand squeezes Guan Shan’s shoulder, and then it sits heavy on the back of Guan Shan’s neck. He Tian’s fingers brush light and tremulous through the shaved hair on his nape. He Tian’s head is turned at an angle, and so his next words are nearly whispered into Guan Shan’s ear. ‘I think this could have become quite uncomfortable.’

* * *

 

**V.**

 

‘You deny charges that you assaulted this student?’

Guan Shan feels drunk, again, tongue thick and cottony. He feels, more, like he is standing where he had been months ago, only this time Jian Yi and Zhengxi will not come through the doors and wave a photo.

Instead, there is He Tian, propped against the Head Teacher’s desk, with his eyebrows raised.

He’s leafing through photos, and the quiet swish is enough of something that Guan Shan can ground himself on it like an anchor. He tries, and fails, to match his heartbeat to it. He can’t do this again. He can’t tell his mum again. He is crying wolf, but She Li is still dressing himself as a sheep.

‘He denies them,’ He Tian says, when the quiet, thick and stifling in the stale office, stretches too long.

The Head Teacher turns to He Tian as he walks over. ‘I didn’t ask—’

‘He denies them,’ He Tian repeats, like the man hadn’t spoken. ‘We saw the guy yesterday after school. Talked. Left. He came to my home after. You can check the cameras in my block.’

‘And he stayed with you?’

He Tian says, ‘All night.’

Guan Shan didn’t go to He Tian’s. He didn’t stay there. But He Tian’s words before they stepped into the office swim in his head: _My brother can fix anything. He owes me. Fucked things up enough for me when I was a kid. Don’t worry._

He knows why this is happening; he knows She Li is punishing the guys who fled at the name of He Tian’s family’s name, who didn’t exact the justice—the revenge—he sought.

This means, technically, that the one who is saving him is He Di, but there is another chalky line being drawn on a blackboard, and the debt lingering between him and He Tian is becoming a hard thing to swallow. There are small weights hanging from him with string, and this last one is being tied with a bow around his throat, just across his Adam’s apple. He Tian is putting a finger on the weight, and tugging down, and Guan Shan knows he will go with it before he allows himself to choke.

* * *

 

**& I. **

 

‘This isn’t going to fucking end, is it?’ Guan Shan asks, leaning against the glass wall of He Tian’s apartment. He Tian must stand here, and stare out, and admire the view from his castle. Guan Shan is interested to know which caste he belongs to if He Tian is its king.

He Tian presses a bottle of water into his hand. They mirror each other against the window, and their reflections overlap and kiss. He Tian is looking out, and beyond. Here, he is displayed at his finest, overseeing what is his, his lax pose exquisitely cultivated, his gaze worldly and assessing.

‘Not for a while,’ He Tian says eventually. ‘But it’s—it’s just schoolboy shit.’

Guan Shan’s eyes fall on the scar of He Tian’s neck, and then to the palm where another silvery line is etched. He Tian’s dismissal of the situation is equal parts relieving and frightening.

‘One day you’re not going to be there,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You’ll get tired. Get annoyed. I used to think I could handle myself, but I’m worth shit compared to you.’

‘That’s a matter of perspective,’ He Tian says. He’s smiling around the rim of the glass. ‘And I’ll always be there. As long as you need.’

Guan Shan makes a sound of helpless disgust. ‘I don’t think you can make that sort of promise. I know how those sorts of promises end, and . . .’

‘And?’

‘And I’ve done nothing for you,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You keep doing all this and I can’t even help you. I can’t save you from anything. I’m not that strong.’

He Tian shrugs off his words. ‘I don’t need saving from anything. I don’t need a shield. I said before, this is what friends do for each other.’

‘Friendship isn’t that selfless,’ Guan Shan mutters. It’s not a denial anymore. He doesn’t have the energy for it. He doesn’t have the cruelty to throw back the word in He Tian’s face when He Tian has done all that he has for him. If He Tian wants to believe that’s what it is, then Guan Shan will let him. It’s the least he could do.

‘You’ve just never had a friend before,’ says He Tian.

‘What, and you _have_?’

He Tian’s lips quirk. ‘If it’s new to the both of us, I think we can make our own rules, can’t we?’ His mouth presses into a firm line. ‘Rule one: We don’t owe each other anything. You don’t need to try and do anything for me. I don’t need saving.’

‘I couldn’t if I wanted to.’

‘You’re not listening. I don’t need you to save me—I don’t need you to shield me when you already have.’

The glass is growing wet and slippery in Guan Shan’s hand, warm palm meeting cold glass. He grips it tight, and the pressure makes it shake. He feels like He Tian’s words are settling exactly where they are meant to; exactly where they have been placed. They sting like grazed palms and weight him like numb headaches.

‘I don’t—I don’t think you know what you’re—’

He Tian cuts in. ‘I know I used to stand here and look down and wonder when, if ever, I’d look down with anyone else.’ His temple is against the window. ‘I know that being with you, even if it was just to be a body at your back—I know that gave me something I haven’t had in a while. Ever, maybe. I know I never had anyone, and I know that I’ve got you.’

Guan Shan swallows. ‘I don’t know . . . what you want me to say. I can’t give you anything for—’

‘I don’t want you to,’ He Tian says. He puts his glass down on the floor, and then his hands are gripping Guan Shan’s forearms. Not tight, but enough that Guan Shan knows he couldn’t move if he tried to. His eyes are dark and unbearable in the dim light; they’re a struggle to look for and seek in the darkness, and perhaps they’re eyes that don’t want to be found. Guan Shan knows that He Tian must not be able to understand the vulnerability that comes with being looked at. ‘I know I’ve fucked this up before,’ He Tian says. ‘But I want to do better. I want to be more or just—something.’

‘So all this—you helping me,’ Guan Shan says, carefully, wrapping his tongue around the words. ‘It’s redemption? You want me to forgive you?’

‘I want you to trust me. I’m not _good_ at this, but—just let me be there for you. Just be there. No strings attached.’

‘There’s always fucking strings,’ Guan Shan says, feeling the one around his throat. It’s there, and present, but he thinks that perhaps the weight has gone. ‘And you can be there whenever the fuck you want. I’ve tried before to get rid of you and you wouldn’t go.’

He Tian smiles, small as a secret. ‘You didn’t try. We both know that.’

Guan Shan looks away. He can feel the indents of He Tian’s fingers on his forearms. ‘I didn’t try hard enough, is all.’

And the thing that they both know, the real secret, is that he didn’t want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157333188474/shield-tianshan-week-4).


	5. AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Harry Potter AU

He Tian takes his time showering after the game, hot spray settling on worn, teased muscles that strain to move. 

They’d played well—better than well, and he knows the Gryffindors will be waiting for his return in the common room with bright-eyed, argent looks and wide smiles. They’ll relay in particular, avid detail, how he put his strength behind the swing of a Beater’s bat, how his defence for the Chasers was almost singlehandedly won. How the Bludger he took to the shoulder was a marvel.

His shoulder twinges as he turns the faucet off, fog layering the mirrors. At the impact, his teeth had gritted, fingernails biting crescents into his palms around the wood of his broomstick. His vision had blackened, bile rising sharp and choking in his throat with the pain—and he hadn’t let go.

He Tian wonders what new flurry of admirers that will have earned him by the morning.

He drags a towel along his damp skin, and when the door to the changing room is hurled open, it’s with enough force to make him still. His eyes snatch at the sight of red hair, the whirl of a green cloak, ears pricking at the sharp sound of a curse, followed by the hurried, well-practiced murmur of a locking charm.

He Tian waits, watching the boy slumped against the door to the changing room, his eye at the keyhole, and then says, ‘I think you’re in the wrong changing room.’

The boy whirls. He Tian’s heart is beating a little faster at the intrusion; he knows it will be nothing compared to the pulse that is thumping in the Slytherin boy’s veins. His eyes are a light brown, and the parting of his lips is a distraction. He is blinking rapidly, back pressed to the door, and his eyes are landing everywhere.

He Tian shifts.

‘I was—Filtch was looking for me,’ the boy says, shoving his wand in his pocket. A scowl is settling itself like it belongs there, the initial shock wiping itself away. ‘I needed a place to hide.’

‘Right,’ says He Tian. He hangs up the towel. Puts his hands on his hips, skin dry and steam-warm. The boy swallows. ‘Mo Guan Shan, isn’t it?’ He Tian says. ‘Slytherin.’

He’d recognise that red hair anywhere, the giveaway for a sixth year student who’s had more detentions than the Carrow twins, and whose tongue churns out curses faster than He Tian can knock away a Bludger.

But the green Quidditch kit looks ill-placed, and He Tian knows the clash is more than just an error of aesthetics. He wonders if Guan Shan does too.

Guan Shan says, ‘Who’s asking.’

‘Me, actually,’ He Tian says blandly. ‘I’m—’

‘Everyone knows who you fucking are, _He Tian_. The Gryffindor Slytherin. Or should that be the Slytherin Gryffindor?’

He Tian arches a brow. He reaches into his bag to pull on a pair of briefs, conscious of Guan Shan’s reluctant gaze that lingers and drags and can’t help itself.

‘You think I’m in the wrong House?’ He Tian asks, glancing over his shoulder.

Guan Shan’s lips purse. ‘You’re in the House you _want_ to be in.’

‘And you’re not?’

Guan Shan just looks at him. His gaze slides, two dark suns eclipsing. After a moment, he jerks his chin. ‘That looks like it hurts.’

He Tian follows his look. There’s a violet stain on his shoulder, blue and black and curling around the skin like a storm gathering on his skin. The impact of it had been a dull, throbbing thing, easy to ignore. He’ll go to the Infirmary later, and have it magicked away. Nothing hurts too much or lasts too long in this world.

‘No thanks to you,’ He Tian says. He bites down a wince as he pulls a Henley shirt over his head, the pull of muscle and tendon smarting, and swipes a pair of jeans from his kit bag.

‘If you didn’t want to get _hurt_ ,’ Guan Shan says, derisive, ‘you shouldn’t have been playing the fucking _game_.’

The air is thick and close around them from the showers, the walls damp and smelling of juniper. Guan Shan’s words are dense and don’t echo.

‘You have a good wrist on you,’ says He Tian, fastening the button.

‘I—’

‘But I’d appreciate it if you could hit Shen Hua next time.’

He Tian’s lips curl at the dark flush colouring Guan Shan’s cheeks, pale skin smudging red.

‘I was _aiming_ for the Chaser,’ Guan Shan grits out. ‘You just—got in the way, as usual.’

‘As usual.’

Guan Shan scowls. ‘With your—your stupid fucking height and your chest and—’

‘My chest?’

‘It’s—Fuck—Would you just—’

He Tian laughs, the sound bouncing off the ceramic tiles. He’s not mocking Guan Shan, but it’s easy to do, and the way Guan Shan stumbles over his words like they’re tripping over a dam blockade fills He Tian with quiet, darkened pleasure. ‘I’ve got a lot of admirers, Guan Shan,’ he tells him. ‘I don’t mind that you’ve got a crush on me.’

‘Fuck off,’ Guan Shan spits. ‘I’m not one of your pathetic Gryffindor lackeys.’

‘All right,’ He Tian says, running a hand through wet hair, the dark strands falling into his eyes. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I told you, I—’

‘Was running from Filtch. Yeah, I heard that bit. That doesn’t explain why.’

He sees, then, how Guan Shan’s fists are shoved in the pockets of his green Beater’s cloak, how no single flash of pale wrist is open and offered to He Tian. Guan Shan catches him looking, and the heel of a booted foot presses against the door.

‘I’ll hex you if you come closer,’ Guan Shan warns.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ says He Tian. His wand lies innocuous on top of his kit bag. He wonders if he could reach for it before Guan Shan has his pulled out of his pockets, but he knows that tongue of Guan Shan’s is like quicksilver, and for once He Tian’s self-preservation is outweighing the morbid curiosity of pressing at a bruise already broken out of its veins.  

‘I’ve seen you hex people before without even moving your lips,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You’re fucking brutal.’

He Tian’s smile widens. ‘Thank you.’

‘Slytherin,’ Guan Shan spits.

‘We’re back to this again, are we?’ He Tian says. He sits on one of the benches to pull a pair of socks over his bare feet, and then shrugs on a dark jacket. He says, throwaway, ‘Is this about your captain?’

Guan Shan stills, and it says everything it needs to. A shadowed disquiet falls across his face, features in sharp, darkened relief.

‘What’s She Li done this time?’ He Tian asks, leaning back, palms on his knees. ‘He’s the reason you’re in Slytherin, isn’t he? What would you have chosen if he wasn’t here?’

Guan Shan’s expression shutters. ‘You don’t—get a _choice_. You go where you’re _meant_ to.’

‘Is that what he told you when you came here?’ He Tian asks. ‘That you had no choice?’

‘I don’t think it’s any of your fucking business.’

‘Well, you’re holding the Snitch he charmed at the beginning of the match, aren’t you? I’m in danger of becoming complicit.’

Guan Shan is gaping at him. ‘How the fuck—You _knew_?’

He Tian sighs. ‘Anyone with eyes could see it had been altered. It spins when it’s released for a few seconds to unfurl its wings. This one shot straight up.’ He smirks. ‘Embarrassing, isn’t it, that we still won? I suppose Jian Yi is just a slightly better Seeker. All that erratic energy goes somewhere, I guess.’ His gaze settles heavy on Guan Shan. ‘Did She Li tell you to get rid of it? Did you steal it while Filtch wasn’t looking?’

‘He didn’t—I was just—’

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian says evenly. He walks over, and the space between them is marginal. He can still smell the sharp sweat on Guan Shan’s skin from the game, and this close, he can see that Guan Shan’s eyes aren’t brown at all; instead they’re russet, like earth stained red and copper with a fallout. There’s a smudge of dirt on his jawline, and it takes the brush of a thumb for it to crumble away.

‘What are you doing?’ Guan Shan murmurs. He looks at He Tian like someone would at sunlight, eyes wide and head rearing back, the burn too curious and sweet on his retinas to really look away. ‘I’m not—you can’t fuck with me like you do everyone else—’

‘You talk when you’re nervous,’ He Tian says, reaching into Guan Shan’s pocket.

The back of his hand brushes against Guan Shan’s, the skin soft and warm, flinching at He Tian’s touch. But it’s not what he’s looking for. He Tian’s fingers grip around the small, metal object, the skimming of wings featherlight against his skin, and the Snitch is silent and quivering when he holds it in the space between their faces.

‘I was going to take it to McGonagall,’ Guan Shan admits, bowing his head. ‘I was going to—tell her what he’d done.’

Something shifts quietly inside of He Tian. ‘She Li would hex you,’ he says. _More than that._

‘I know.’

‘You could be suspended for not owning up before the game.’

Guan Shan’s eyes flash at him. ‘ _I_ _know_.’

‘Eager for punishment?’ He Tian says lightly. ‘This whole thing is _very_ Gryffindor of you.’

‘Shut up.’

He Tian huffs a laugh. The Snitch spins in his fingers. The windows in the changing room are high placed, just beneath the ceiling trim, and spring light beams gold and soft and brilliant down onto the two students. Shadows dapple Guan Shan’s skin, and his eyes are turned golden as he watches the spin of the ball.

‘I’ll do you a favour,’ He Tian says. ‘I’m the Gryffindor here. I’ll hand it in myself. Say I was putting it back in the storage shed when I sensed it had been tampered with. Does that work?’

Guan Shan’s eyes are narrowed, wavering in suspicion. ‘Why would you do that?’

He Tian pockets the Snitch, feeling it tremble against his thigh. His fingers, cold with the metal, rise up, and he lets the pad of his forefinger trace the edges of Guan Shan’s lower lip, warm and soft and perfectly ridged. It opens for him, Guan Shan’s startled breath warm and hitched against He Tian’s skin.

‘Let’s just say,’ He Tian breathes, leaning in close, ‘I can be _very_ Slytherin when I want to be.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157373797484/au-tianshan-week-5).


	6. One Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Mo Guan Shan's diary, reference to sex

**18 th February 2017**

I saw you today. You looked well. There were empty galaxies in your dark eyes where stars should have been trailing comet lights. You asked me how I was. I said the space around you still smelled of cigarettes. Fuck. 

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2018**

You look sharper and your words still pierce like there are x’s on my body and you know where to cut, but I’m still holding onto the hilt and sinking in, and the slide is like putting my head under water and thinking I can still breathe: gasping, retching; my lungs are wrapping themselves inside out, and all of me is on show.

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2020**

You’re in the army, enduring, and I’m here, not, and you saved me a seat in the café and bought me sweet tea and you still smoke. I started smoking, for a while, because—no, don’t. You know why. It always tasted better on your lips.

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2025**

Your skin is etched where it didn’t use to be, and shadows have made their home out of you: the hallows of your ribs, the blessèd small of your back, those sanctified spaces between the grooves of your finger joints. I never used to think that you could be holy.

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2026**

Distance does not make the heart grow fonder, and when we fucked for the first time my lunar heart was scrabbling to take hold of your satellites. There was a moment where your lips, ferocious, made new skin out of the territory between my thighs, uncharted, unplotted on your maps. I was readying myself to be conquered, and made into a name that your tongue could wrap itself around. _One day,_ you whispered, before you left, _I will capture you whole._

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2028**

You fell to your knees and pressed your head to my stomach. I could see the dark crown of your head and the curve of your broad and scarred shoulders like you were Atlas and I was a too-heavy Earth. I told you to let me go. Lighten the load. You said you would bear it until you broke. I thought, traitorous, my palm on your neck, that you already had.

 

* * *

 

**23 rd October 2029**

I dreamt tonight that you were here and learning how sorry’s worked. For the purple stains you left me the first time like summer storm skies. For the mess you made of my pink mouth. For the jacket you refused to take back. The feel of that fabric stung more than anything else, and you refused to take it back. Keep your sorry’s.

 

* * *

 

**18 th February 2030**

You’re still keeping your promise and I think, probably, it is the only one you have ever made. Ever kept. _One day a year_ , you said. I get that it’s difficult for you. To look at our unsafe sky and watch the colours change shape in hours—twenty-four—that we can hold in our palms. One day we will have more than one day. I know we will.

 

* * *

 

**19 th February 2031**

Good morning. You didn’t leave. You’re warm on my sheets and you bring me sweet tea. My cheeks are blotchy, aren’t they? Let me brush my teeth first. In the mirror, you’re smiling. You’re swimming and I can see only the murky, hovering outline of you. _Every day,_ you murmur, tremulous, close in my ear, _if you’ll have me._ My heart is breaking out of me, and I wonder that you can’t see it. I’m snatching at those words, a grubby child’s palm, and I’m not giving them back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157416240474/one-day-tianshan-week-6).


	7. Freestyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW. It is an illustrated collab with [bisho-s.](http://bisho-s.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Tags: NSFW, alcohol, club setting, university setting

‘You look like you could do with a drink!’

Guan Shan runs a hand through shorn hair; his nape is slick with sweat and there’s something burning with quiet need in the base of his throat, humming with the bass, retinas startled with light flashes.

The words are shouted at him from the girl behind the bar, pumping shots out for the other students standing around him, pressing him against the sticky edge of the bar. He clenches his fists, pushes down the spike in his heart that makes him wants to push back, fingernails biting half-moon crescents into his palms.

‘No trouble tonight!’ the bartender warns loudly, barely heard over the music, like she recognises the need in him. ‘Or next time you won’t get in.’

Guan Shan grunts. ‘Wasn’t my fucking fault!’

‘You broke the kid’s rib,’ she says, a finger pointed. ‘Doesn’t _matter_ who started it.’

Guan Shan downs the shot, liquor burning his throat, aniseed lingering in his gums and making them ache. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth as he shifts his jaw, pressed his palms into the bar, sticky with spilled spirits.

‘Another?’

Guan Shan shakes his head. It already feels like his sight is being tugged out of his head, curling in at the edges like an old photograph.

‘It’s on the house!’

Guan Shan glances at the bartender, strobe lights winking in the mirror behind her, glancing off the edge of her glasses and the bottles of liquor on the shelves. Dark hair is nested on her head, lips red and lush, shaped brows owing her a severity that would be intimidating if Guan Shan wasn’t used to it.

‘I’m not interested!’ he shouts over the deafening pulse of the music.

‘I can see that!’ she shouts back.

Guan Shan flicks an eyebrow up. ‘Yeah?’

She nods, slowly. Mouths, ‘Yeah.’ Her gaze slides somewhere behind him, and he knows exactly where it falls. It’s the same thing he’s been watching in the mirror behind the bar.

The club is close and hot and there’s barely any space between the bodies that press tight and close on the dancefloor, void-dark and throbbing as a black hole. Guan Shan knows how easy it is to get pulled into it, the small confines where time is absent and touching and sound exists only as a pulse in your bloodstream.

Something under Guan Shan’s skin is itching and yawning, readying itself, and he can feel that close pull tugging him, hooks against veins.

‘Fuck,’ he mutters, puts his head in his hands, elbows on the bar surface.

The girl laughs. ‘Yeah,’ she says, taking cash from the students around him. ‘You think you’ve got a shot with someone like him?’

‘Does anyone?’ Guan Shan asks, and then he glances in the mirror.

It’s a mistake.

The void is staring back, and Guan Shan’s trajectory is suddenly off-kilter, satellites crashing, a planet spinning wild and out of orbit. He feels something in the base of him falling out, and the heat that runs across him is star-hot and searing. There are no flames on him, and he thinks there should be.

He Tian is grinning at him.

Sometimes people live through moments that they know will become a memory, re-living the not-yet-lived, every etched line of it committed to synapses and neural receptors, and Guan Shan is committing this one—flash of teeth, the whites of eyes turned red in the light, stark veins of forearms a river, deep-sky blue—to his.

Guan Shan’s feet are moving, body moving on a war path, and then He Tian is snaking a hand around his wrist.

The touch of his skin is agonising, hot and damp with sweat and Guan Shan is swallowing the smell of his cigarettes when he breathes.

‘What?’ Guan Shan says. He thinks they have the wrong eye colour. It should be impossible that the darkness set in He Tian’s irises could burn so fierce. His own, russet red and autumn forests burning themselves alive in summer heat, are low-lidded and liquor-tinged. His breathing is heavy.

‘You’ve been avoiding me,’ He Tian mutters in his ear, turning him around. He’s hot at Guan Shan’s back, a hand snaking around Guan Shan’s waist to press on his stomach, another on his hip, forcing him into the hypnotic sway of the music. His voice is lower when he drinks, but Guan Shan can never tell if he’s drunk. Not until after, later, when his lips move slower on Guan Shan’s throat and leave untidy bruises in the aftermath.

Guan Shan feels himself press back, eyes closed in quiet self-loathing. He can’t let himself see who’s watching this; who is watching him and knowing what little vicious thoughts are running in his head while everything else is so fucking loud.

‘You’re fucking everywhere,’ Guan Shan mutters. The music is pounding, his head splintering with each drop of bass, floor shaking, bones aching, tongue sharp with Sambuca and throat aflame and woollen with vodka.

He’s seen the dark crown of He Tian’s head everywhere on campus, the stretch of his shoulders that Guan Shan knows the feeling of beneath his searching hands, the cigarettes that linger on building corners and under café awnings.

‘Is that a bad thing?’ He Tian says, arm a vice-tight grip around him. Guan Shan couldn’t leave if he wanted to. He doesn’t. It should fill him with panic, a tight, stilting pressure in his throat that leaves him choking bruises.

How, he wonders, has this become a comfort? How has he built a home out of this?

‘You’re never here,’ Guan Shan says, the words tumbling helplessly past drunk lips, tongue thick in his mouth. He Tian’s lips brush his temple, like if he gets close enough he can breathe the words in.

‘And this the only place that matters?’ He Tian asks. There’s no space between them. Every shift of his hips has Guan Shan moving with him; telling this feeling and the music apart is impossible. He Tian has always played his own chords and Guan Shan has always been left trembling with the bass of him, pulsing and bone-deep.

‘Yeah,’ Guan Shan says. ‘It’s dark enough.’

He Tian is humming in his ear. He knows, always, what Guan Shan means. It’s dark enough that the outline of a body is lost, that hands are damp and tongues are sharp and made of poison. But he knows, too, that in the darkness of this place, every strobe of light is dawn bright on those small parts you try to hide away in the shadows. Crevices and fissures laid bare and violently technicoloured. Here it feels like a light has been shoved down Guan Shan’s throat, lighting him up like an x-ray, and He Tian can see all his bones.

He knows that here they can’t talk. This isn’t a place for words. He knows that here, only, is the touch and the taste and the mindless slide of He Tian’s body against his own that feels only perfectly orchestrated, manufactured and preordained.

 

 Artwork credit: [@bisho-s](http://bisho-s.tumblr.com/post/157469893437/tianshan-week-day-7-free-style-well-this)

‘What do you want to hide in the dark, Guan Shan?’ He Tian whispers, and Guan Shan is reaching back and pressing his hand onto the back of He Tian’s neck, a lifeline, He Tian’s pulse heavy against the lambent glimmer of his wrist.

There are teeth grazing the curve of his ear; lips brushing across the shadow of his jawline that leaves his mouth open and parting and wanting.

There’s a hardness at his back, and he can hear the shuddering affirmation carried in He Tian’s breath, astral planes diminishing between them, stars colliding and extinguishing into nothingness. The heat between them is indiscriminate and tearing and—

‘We shouldn’t,’ says Guan Shan, because he can feel the heat, and that torturous pressure in the small of his back, forcing him to face a galaxy against which he had no defence.

‘No?’ says He Tian. His voice doesn’t fight to be heard over the music. Guan Shan can hear it in his blood. ‘Why not?’

And Guan Shan, for one burning, helpless moment, throat scorched, has no defence.

This darkness is offering him nothing.

He presses back closer, and there’s a hitch, warm pleasure welling sourly in the pit of him, and the hand on his stomach is slipping lower, fingertips brushing the edge of his jeans.

He Tian’s touching skin, and Guan Shan is alive.

‘Not here,’ he makes out, barely.

He Tian makes a sound in his ear, a vibration that gets lost in the pulse of the music, and Guan Shan doesn’t move away. He stays where he is; a cry muffled buried beneath the bass, as He Tian wraps a hand around his cock.

A strobe washes over them and Guan Shan is bucking into He Tian’s touch, blood screaming with ethanol sharp enough that he wants to kiss He Tian and make it sting.

He can feel He Tian’s cock hard in the small of his back, every press of bodies around them, every hard shove, every scream of a synth that sits heavy and shoots across his skin.

He remembers the kiss stolen from his mouth, and knows that it tasted like this, lust tight and choking, agency torn away from him, He Tian’s skin a tyranny ruling over him, forcing everything inside of him to burn.

And he burns, now. Gladly—eagerly.

He Tian’s fingers are teasing across the length of his cock, hard and throbbing, trapped between skin and skin, jeans tight enough that there is only the hard heel of He Tian’s palm and the graze of his fingernails that make Guan Shan’s back arch. The stroke of He Tian’s fingertips that are their own music, and the only thing Guan Shan can feel himself moving to anymore.

He’s seeing nothing but darkness and flashes of light, vision relinquished and conquered and abandoned to touch, a fortress given over to He Tian’s command.

He Tian’s breath is hot and sweet in his ear, and when He Tian pulls his jaw around, his mouth tastes of cigarettes and sticky liquor and something still burning, charcoal kisses and whiskey breaths swallowed, the kiss wet and filthy.

Guan Shan’s heart careens in his chest. This is a performance of need and want, displayed and hidden only by vodka and darkness and lights that make it impossible to feel present, a safety net made of razor wire that He Tian is telling him to trust.

‘Not here?’ He Tian says, mocking, his breath a rush in Guan Shan’s ear. Guan Shan’s legs feel like they’re falling out from underneath him, and He Tian’s grip around his stomach is iron-hard and unrelenting.

‘I fucking hate you,’ Guan Shan says, hissing when He Tian squeezes tight, and Guan Shan is fucking into his grip, hips questing, rising, sinew and muscle writhing in the underneath.

He can feel the swipe of He Tian’s palm, sticky with pre-come as it glances over him; holds tight; brushes soft as a callow virgin lover. That last touch, Guan Shan knows, is a lie, but he will allow himself to believe it for now, while He Tian is pressing and grinding at his back, and while the music swells and rises and gets ready to drop like the lurch of your insides at the fall.

Guan Shan’s thighs shake, and he can feel his breath choking him, skin slick with sweat and spilled drinks. This isn’t romantic. This isn’t tender loving. This isn’t something Guan Shan should _want_ , but this moment is assailable and inescapable, and there is no running from this. This, he will have to take.

He can feel it, the tremble, the first moments of the ground quavering beneath his feet, tectonic plates shifting and ready to fracture.

‘He Tian,’ he groans, feeling He Tian’s cock relentless at his back, no space for Guan Shan to reach around and touch him too.

He Tian’s hand quickens.

‘Fuck, He Tian—Fuck, I’m going to—’

‘I want you to,’ He Tian murmurs, teeth grazing Guan Shan’s ear.

‘Not here,’ Guan Shan pants, words slurring. ‘Fuck, please not here. Everyone’s—’

‘Not looking.’

And He Tian’s right; pupils are blown wide as solar eclipses in pale faces, and Guan Shan can see how their skin writhes like the music is a charge plugging into their bodies. He bites down hard on his lip, tasting coppery blood that mingles sweetly with aniseed.

‘Come on, Guan Shan,’ He Tian growls, fist pumping hard and inexorable, music building. ‘You could scream my name and no one would fucking know.’

‘ _I’d fucking know_.’

He Tian says, ‘And wouldn’t that be a sin.’

The bass drops—the words undo him.

They’re a knife that slips kindly between his ribs and knows where to bury itself. A firework lit and exploded inside him, and He Tian is telling him how pretty he bursts into light.

His legs fail him; a name is torn from his lips in a ruin of syllables; He Tian’s voice is lost in laughter and he’s groaning, shuddering, mouthing into the shadow beneath Guan Shan’s jaw, a weight slumped on his back that suffocates him and keeps him standing, the iceberg and the lifeboat.

He Tian would love it, Guan Shan thinks, trembling and tacky with release, stars like strobe lights behind his eyes as he centres himself, to realise that he was both saviour and destroyer, an archangel with a searing blade and a forked tongue.

‘Fuck,’ He Tian murmurs, straightening, a half-laugh.

Everyone is still moving around them, oblivious, a river that refuses to cease while Guan Shan and He Tian tremble and shake, a fjord slowly freezing.

‘Come on,’ He Tian murmurs, and he’s pulling his hand from Guan Shan’s cock, fingers wrapping around the staccato pulse of Guan Shan’s wrist, the touch an anchor as he’s tugged through the swathe of bodies. The music is too loud now, lights blinding, the smell of spilled alcohol and sweat and aftershave choking.

He wants blissful darkness and cool sheets and He Tian’s mouth between his thighs and—

He Tian stops, and Guan Shan’s stumbling into him. He Tian has his lips at Guan Shan’s ear.

‘You want me to fuck you, I know,’ he says, ‘but not here.’

‘Where are we going?’ Guan Shan asks, slurring, feet heavy. He realises that he’ll let He Tian take him anywhere.

‘My place,’ He Tian says. ‘You’re better than a club bathroom, Guan Shan.’ His fingers tease around Guan Shan’s wrist. ‘Tomorrow we’ll nurse hangovers and watch shitty TV and play video games, but for now I want to fuck you into my sheets.’

Guan Shan chokes on it, lust crawling like a solar flare, and he lets He Tian lead him away from the dancefloor and towards the exit haloed by a flickering green sign. They pass the bar, and when Guan Shan catches the bartender’s eye, she gives him a wink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a kudos/comment/[share love on the original work via Tumblr](http://thefearofthetruth.tumblr.com/post/157650090524/freeform-tianshan-week-7).


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